Microsoft Stops Offering 1TB Surface Book

If you are looking to purchase a 1TB Surface Book, be prepared to call around as Microsoft is no longer offering on its website. Up until today, or possibly a few days ago as I’m not sure when the change was made, you were able to buy a top end Book with 1TB of solid state storage and 16 GB of RAM.

I had been checking the Surface site frequently and this particular SKU has been out of stock for some time. Seeing as the option is now removed from the order page, this suggests that it may never be coming back. If you are wanting that particular configuration, your best bet now is to call around to your local retailers to see if they have any in stock.

The optimistic side of me hopes that this is the start of the end for this line of devices and that we should be seeing a new Surface Book in the near future. Last I had heard, which was several months ago and means the plans could change, is that October was the target for refreshing the device; if that holds true, seeing inventory shortages is not all that surprising.

I’ve pinged Microsoft to see if they have any further details about the SKU removal.

Further, if you are still looking to buy a Surface Book, the company is cutting the entry level SKUs by $150 for the 128 and 256 Core i5 configurations.

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A customer asked for a Windows computer with a 12"+ tablet or convertible form factor with stylus input and discrete video.

I told them the only option is either a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga P40 (too big) or a Surface Book. They almost shat themselves when I showed them the price of the Surface Book with dGPU.

I mentioned there are other alternatives out there from the Surface Pro if they were looking at something like that, but they wanted something to do CAD work on, which the Surface Pro isn't particularly good at, so why spend the money on Microsoft's overpriced option when other brands have better hardware....

They went to a Microsoft Store recently to look at each machine, and ended up buying a Surface Pro anyway. *shrug*

This customer has done this on and off for the last 5 years, trying new tablets out for about 6 months and then complaining about the lack of performance. It's all fun the first few weeks, but the shine wears off pretty fast.

Another customer doesn't like the 12" screen size of the Surface Pro or OEM knockoffs. But he wants stylus input. Again, I said the only option on the market is the P40 because the only other touchscreen 13"+ machines are ones with no digitizer for stylus input. People are looking for system configurations that don't exist.

"Another customer doesn't like the 12" screen size of the Surface Pro or OEM knockoffs. But he wants stylus input. Again, I said the only option on the market is the P40 because the only other touchscreen 13"+ machines are ones with no digitizer for stylus input. People are looking for system configurations that don't exist."

In reply to Waethorn: Not sure I understand wanting to do CAD work on a 12" portable device. You (generic) have to understand that as the device gets smaller, getting the power you need for CAD is going to get expensive. The market for portable CAD is probably small enough that the low volume would drive up the price as well. Maybe you should have showed them the Surface Studio first, spec out the top end. Then the Pro and Book don't look so bad. ;)

There have been many requests for MS to sell the screen off the Studio as a monitor. That would be cool, but probably would be a jaw dropping price even on it's own. There just isn't anything with that size, resolution, and UI options that I see. Wacom's stuff is the closest, and that's not cheap either. That would seem to be the solution though, a laptop that meets the performance requirement and a Cintiq 13HD or bigger. Not as portable, and not cheap, but does the job. Portable, Effective, Cheap, pick two out of three.

Probably because the client wants to be able to modify designs on job sites, and review projects that his staff work up. It has to be portable. He already has Cintiq screens and heavy-duty workstation PC's at the office.

Customers can be frustrating as hell, when you know what they need but they refuse to listen over and over again, because they think they can magically get higher spec performance from a lower spec device. That is a great story. Thanks for sharing.

That's not it at all. They're looking for a device that doesn't exist in the market: a tablet device with decent graphics performance and stylus input. There is only one device that fits that category, and that's the Surface Book, which is completely overpriced and underspec'ed for serious work. I'm saying that there is demand for such a device, but OEM's aren't making it. It would take other OEM's to show that Microsoft is pricing theirs too high for the vast majority of the market to bear. However, this is still a niche market. It's a bit sad when we've gotten to the point where the majority of consumers wants to be satisfied with "just good enough" because it hampers price-value competition and innovation. I'd go so far to say that the PC consumer market is in a depression. Certainly, when one looks at choices available today, the market is depressing - and shrinking. Maybe that's why I'm more interested in alternate non-Windows platforms of late - it's hard to get excited about old hat Windows anymore, and Microsoft isn't helping with their latest company moves, especially in how they service the platform. It's easier to look at how a relatively new startup platform evolves into what could revolutionize computer usage models. I certainly don't see that from Microsoft. They're the cranky old fart of computer software companies.

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Surface Book 2, hopefully without the hinge hole, plus the MS finance & trade up program might get my on the Surface bandwagon. I currently use a Surface Pro 3 at work which I like but I don't think the kickstand and it's not-so-lappable design. I've been intrigued by the Surface Book but that hinge and the hinge hole aren't great. That a long with a lack of USB-C/Thunderbolt 3. If those two things could get addressed in SB2 I'd completely jump on board.

I'm with ivthunder, the hinge gap is a non-issue for me, especially since it allows the keyboard to be raised. The lack of USB-C also hasn't been a problem since I use the Surface dock for charging and peripheral hook-up.

I've gone through 3x Surface Book 2's, every single one crashed upon first booting, countless hours of tech support, and I've even received additional compensation from MS for the 'inconvenience'. (Paul, I've sent you an email about my experience) As a MS 'Fan-boy', I'm worried about how Microsoft's handling their hardware division... I NEED a Surface Book and I'm making due with a Surface Laptop for my daily work flow. I sincerely hope they get the next formula right. #SurfaceBook2LTE

Paul is there any credible rumour of likely configuration for a new Book? Would it have a performance base style of battery for example to drive a NVidia 1000 series GPU? It is probably out of sync but would Microsoft segue to a Ryzen chipset for the multithreading performance and CPU graphics potential advantage over Intel? That might burn bridges that Microsoft don't need to yet of course which is a whole interesting discussion in itself.

I don't think Ryzen is ready for laptops, let alone ultrabooks or tablets. This is definitely still an Intel-only area right now. As for GPU, I have a feeling they'd stick with Nvidia since they're more power-efficient than AMD is.